28 March 2025
- Mikaela Blows
- Mar 28
- 6 min read
School Development Plan
As this term draws to a close I’d like to share with you the progress we’ve made towards the school development priorities.
Please take a moment to read through our update at this link.
Sad News
We were very sad to hear last week that our former colleague, Mr Huq had passed away. Mr Huq had supported the St Luke’s Hospice ‘Men’s Day Out’ event for the last 10 years and on Saturday 22 March, members of staff joined his friends and participated in this year’s event, taking his motorised wheelchair decorated in Everton blue with them all the way.
Mr Huq helped to raise a staggering amount of over £12,000 for St Luke’s Hospice. If you would like to make a donation, here is the link:
Mr Orkney said “Tay was aiming to make this event as part of his bucket list of activities but sadly lost his battle against COPD last Sunday evening. It was a highly emotional but wonderful occasion and many staff joined the walkers at the end at Plymouth Albion RFC for a pint and a big hug. Although Plymouth Albion lost narrowly to Rosslyn Park it was fitting that two ex students played against each other; Archie Hill for Albion and Jasper Cameron for Rosslyn Park. Lots of other ex students attended the game to watch their friends play.”
DHSB Achieves Rail Safe Friendly Gold Award
We are proud to announce that DHSB has been awarded the Rail Safe Friendly Gold Award in recognition of our commitment to rail safety education. This achievement follows a year of focused efforts to raise awareness among our students, staff, and wider community about the dangers and responsibilities associated with railway travel.
With so many of our students commuting by train or living near railway lines, rail safety became a top priority for our PSHE curriculum this year. Inspired by Harrison’s Story - a powerful video highlighting the real-life consequences of unsafe behaviour around trains - our entire school community came together to reinforce the message of staying safe on and around the railways.
As part of our efforts, we introduced a brand-new Year 8 PSHE unit dedicated to rail safety, ensuring that all students are equipped with the knowledge they need to make safe and responsible decisions. Additionally, our students played an active role in spreading awareness by creating a rail safety video, which we shared on our social media platforms to extend the message beyond the classroom and into the wider community.
Receiving the Gold Award is a testament to our school's dedication to student safety and responsible travel. We are grateful for the support from Rail Safe Friendly and remain committed to promoting railway safety for years to come.
Mr Scott
Magistrates Mock Trial
Last Friday, our Year 9 team took part in the Magistrates Court Mock Trial Competition in Truro. Students took the roles of lawyers, witnesses, court officials and magistrates and performed all their roles admirably. This was a new competition for us, and although we didn’t win, we learned some very valuable lessons for next year. And, as this was Cornwall, we also learnt from almost every speaker that it was jam first!
I have to compliment the organisers of the Cornwall heat, who made this a wonderful learning opportunity as well as a competition. This started with entering the court where everyone was searched as would happen on a normal court day. We were given a complete tour of the courts and were even taken down to the cells which were grim to say the least. And at the end, there was a question-and-answer session with magistrates, judges and a representative from the Court service in Cornwall. The High Sheriff of Cornwall in full dress uniform was there all day and made sure that he spoke to everyone who took part. And we were joined at the end by the Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall. Unfortunately, security meant that no photos could be taken in the court buildings.
Competitions such as this are a marvellous way for students to get a taste of what a legal career might be like and look great on university applications. As always, I came away feeling exceptionally proud of our students.
Mr Riggs
Physics Society News
Over 20 students attended last Friday’s Physics Society meeting to hear Year 11 student Luke Madgett speak on the topic of the G-FOLD convex-optimisation algorithm, used to guide reusable rockets back to earth with the minimum fuel use.
Luke delivered a passionate and well-explained description of a complex system, used by companies such as Masten Space Systems and Space-X to manoeuvre reusable rockets safely back to earth, calculating any required changes during the descent.
DHSB Chess Report March 2025
“Now we can concentrate on the league” is the frequently-heard comment of teams
eliminated from cup competitions, and it has been a tough month for the boys.
The month got underway with the Torbay League KO competition which I believed we could win but alas, was not to be as our top two players were unavailable for the semi-final and a further player had to pull out on the way to the match, resulting in a default. James Trenam-Nash had every reason to be proud as he achieved the best result of his life by taking down one of the experienced Plymouth club players. Regrettably, this achievement was not enough to save the team.
Later in the month we faced Exeter Mathematical School in the Regional Final of the English Schools Chess Championship. Last November, we beat their side, but they turned up with a hugely strengthened team (including two of last year’s DHSB team). There was little cheer in the 1-5 defeat but the students should be proud as their opponents were all sixth formers. (I believe there is a conversation to be had about schools like ours, with students aged 11 - 18 competing against sixth form only schools such as Exeter Mathematical School.) Ironically, last year’s captain Jack Chen, was held by our own James Allen who might even have gone on to win. We will be attending a repechage event at the end of April so we do still have an opportunity to reach the National Final in the Summer.
League progress has been relatively quiet this month, with just one match against Plymouth University to report. For a fourth match the team went unbeaten, a third 2-2 draw with Oliver Morton and Caleb Caleshu contributing wins.
Mr Butland
Pokémon?
We are really pleased to share with you a very successful extra curricular club completely created and led by Connor Meredith and Noah Goodchild from 7S. The Pokémon club is an opportunity to share your best deck, compare cards and play! Next week there will be a ‘battle’ between Aeron (7S) and Henry (7J) and Rory (7L) and Georgie (9S), good luck! If anyone is interested in joining please come to A21 Wednesday during break 2.
Excellent Work
In Mrs Brooking's Spanish class, 8W completed their weather presentations. They delivered confidently, describing the weather in various Spanish-speaking countries.
Sparx Maths and Sparx Reader
Each week we celebrate our highest performers in both Sparx Maths and Sparx Reader, two of our core homework platforms. We are proud of all of our students who complete their homework each week to such a high standard but these students deserve a special mention.
Congratulations!
Sports Update
Rugby
The 2025 Howden Rosslyn Park National Schools 7s took place this week. Several of our students participated in 'the biggest and best schools rugby tournament in the world'. A few of the matches were shown on YouTube so some staff and parents were able to enjoy the matches and support the teams from home.
A full report and more images will be shared in next week's Head's Blog so watch this space!
Football
Year 10 Plymouth Cup semi final against Plympton Academy Friday 21 March
The team played really well in a tightly contested Plymouth Cup semi final. Ewan made some excellent saves to keep the score at 0-0 and it could have gone either way. With 1 minute of normal time remaining Lucas scored a really well taken goal to send DHSB through to the Plymouth Cup final. Well done for this achievement.
Final Score DHSB 1 - 0 Plympton Academy
Year 10 Devon Cup quarter final against Heles Tuesday 25 March
Another clean sheet with some well made saves from Ewan again and a DHSB team depleted with injuries and other fixtures. Credit to Bryan, Carter and Jacopo for stepping into the team and contributing to the win. Goals from Charlie and Frankie send us through to the Devon Cup semi final where we await the results of other games. Well done for this achievement.
Final Score DHSB 2 - 0 Heles
Year 7 against Plymouth College
On Monday we hosted 3 teams from Plymouth College which gave 28 Year 7 students the opportunity to represent the school. The games were played with fantastic spirit and we saw some brilliant goals from all teams involved.
